


The Work We Have To Do

by MarchofBirds



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Introspection, M/M, No Dialogue, Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-04-16 17:21:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14169783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarchofBirds/pseuds/MarchofBirds
Summary: Sometimes, growing up, Sam considered his father, brother, and himself to be sort of modern-day nomads.Dean had often thought of them as heroes out of a western, killing evil in the places that were still lawless.And John? John never really thought of much past the next hunt. Except, maybe, what Mary would say if she could see their boys, wrapped around each other like they could keep the dark out if they just held on tight enough.A look at Sam and Dean’s relationship from childhood to right before the beginning of the series.





	The Work We Have To Do

**  
**

** John **

Through the years John always asked for two queens as an act of mercy. He could’ve gotten a king and bought a couple cots at a sporting goods store for the boys, he could’ve gotten two rooms and let them have their space. But he didn’t. If they ever complained he could’ve- and would’ve- claimed that he didn’t get another room because money was tight. He didn’t buy cots because there wasn’t enough room in the Impala. But they never said a word.

Of course part of the reason he didn’t get them their own room was for security; he wanted to keep them close, keep them safe when he could. John was away so often on hunts that it did his heart good to be in the same room with them when he was around. He could hear their rhythmic breathing; know they were alive and well. But he knew, though he wouldn’t admit it even to himself, it was more than that- always had been. Even as they grew taller, stronger, faster, even as they learned to protect themselves better than he could ever protect the two of them, his knee-jerk reaction when a hotel clerk asked “hello may I help you” was always “I’d like a room, two queens please, credit. Thank you.”

There had long since been a niggling voice in the back of his head that grew louder as the years passed, chastising him for this behavior. _Wrong, wrong, wrong._ He made a pact with that voice when Dean was in his early teens: if either of them complained or showed any signs of needing space he would put them in their own room, their own beds, without hesitation. They had been through a lot. They needed to grow up at their own pace. It was only natural. The problem, then, was that neither of them ever did. That did nothing to sooth the voice of worry- _your fault, your fault they think this is normal, should have put an end to this a long time ago._ John would never call himself an exceptional father but he worried, that’s what parents do.

In truth, he couldn’t bear to split them up, not when he saw them together. Because in all honesty they didn’t need a queen; even when Dean’s shoulders had filled out and Sam was getting nearly as tall as John himself there was always extra room in their bed. They would go to sleep on opposite sides of the bed as far as he could tell, but by morning they were clinging to each other as if they were crammed in the backseat of the Impala. As if there was never enough room. Or always too much. No matter how big Sam got, in the morning his face was always pressed into the space between Dean’s shoulder and his chest, with his brother’s arm underneath his neck. The first time John saw the display of brotherly affection was a few days after Mary’s death. And what was left of John’s feelings, what wasn’t numb from grief, swelled with pride. They were taking care of each other, and all was as right as it could be in this new, sharp-edged world full of monsters. But they didn’t do what normal children do with childhood comforts; they just didn’t grow out of it. He tried to imagine what Mary would say, if she would be worried about this clearly abnormal behavior. He could almost see her face twist in confusion, not quite sure whether their nightly ritual was harmful or sweet. She felt so close in those moments it hurt and he had to pull away from the thought before he could ever decide what her verdict would be.

He might have let it go entirely if it were just their sleeping patterns. But John wasn’t blind or slow. He may have been impeded by a streak of denial but even still, he saw the way they were with each other or, more specifically, the way they looked at each other. Like most things, it started with Dean. He was the oldest and tended to be the indirect bearer of strange, occasionally unpleasant, developments in their march toward adulthood. Sam and Dean were much more alike than anyone but John gave them credit for. The way Dean looked at his brother shifted at a pace akin to that of plate tectonics; it happened slowly over the course of his childhood and adolescence, grew with him, until mountains formed that no one seemed to see but John. It was an unmistakable force of nature, and like any aspect of nature it was difficult to place a label of “right” or “wrong” on the cover- it just was.

In the beginning there was nothing but pure love, affection in its most natural, unpolluted form. Dean may have never admitted out loud how much he loved his brother but unlike the rest of him his eyes never hardened- they censored nothing. And it was beautiful. Over the years though, as they grew, something changed. John was never sure when it happened but at one point or another, those glances in his brother’s direction lingered longer than he remembered, and a heat grew there where it hadn’t been before. John knew he had to be imagining things. He knew that but Dean’s eyes were just the right shade of green such that they were unable to mask the dilation of pupils when those looks lingered a little too long.   

And of course Sam followed in his brother’s footsteps in most aspects of life, save for that of academics. In his older brother he placed every bit of adoration he had, and looked up to him in the way he never did John. He couldn’t lie to himself, he was a little jealous that he would never get to be a _hero_ to Sam. But that was alright, because Dean was a good role model. He was a good hunter, brave, clever, and took orders better than anyone. But, and maybe it was because Sam adulated Dean so fervently, something in his eyes shifted as well. Unlike Dean though, he seemed to change much faster. If Dean was convergence, Sam was an earthquake. But it was a silent change; if John hadn’t been there to witness it, he might’ve missed the transformation altogether. And just like in his brother, Sam’s glances transformed until they settled on “longing” and seemed to find a home there. 

It wasn’t only their looks that concerned John. Their touches seemed to stray into oddity as well. They could be roughhousing one moment, nearly groping the next. Somehow mending the other’s wound would transform into gentle pets. And of course then came the guilt. Because the whole thing seemed as invisible to them as it was obvious to John. They dealt with it in different ways. Dean turned it in on himself in typical fashion. He trained himself harder, studied every scrap of information on the supernatural that he could get his hands on, and flirted with every girl they came across like his sanity depended on it.

Sam, on the other hand, turned his guilt on John himself. They screamed at each other till they were red in the face; his adolescence became an ongoing pissing contest between him and his father. John couldn’t deny that he deserved some, if not all, of Sam’s resentment but he _knew_ there was more to it than that. He had seen it. But for all their guilt and discomfort, nothing could drive them from each other the second he switched the light in the motel room off.

 

John knew that he wouldn’t be around forever, knew that the self-destructive path he’d chosen the moment he realized Mary was gone would kill him. Even in knowing that, there was nothing he could do to stop himself from continuing on. That, ultimately, was why he never gave them their own room with separate beds, or brought along cots, or anything else. Because the way they clung to each other, the way they loved each other- _wrong, wrong, wrong_ \- was the only thing that could save them one day when John couldn’t. And if the day came that one of them realized the way he was sure the other felt, if one or the other ever chose to act on those feelings, well, he was content to turn a blind eye if it meant his sons would always have a home.

 

 

* * *

**  
**

**Sam**

Sam Winchester never had an easy life but he’d always had a family, albeit a broken one but it was the only one Sam ever knew, and honestly he didn’t quite know how to miss a mother he didn’t remember. He knew not to say that out loud, knew it was too much for Dean to handle. His father was old enough, experienced and logical enough to understand that Sam couldn’t miss Mary in quite the same way they did. Dean had too much anger, and love, in him for reason sometimes. That was just his way.

A lot of things were missing in Sam’s life; he realized that more and more as he got older. Other kids had moms, other kids had normal dads, and other kids had homes with four walls. Other kids grew out of their fear of the dark. Sam grew into his. Sam couldn’t exactly say he _liked_ his unusual life, but he got by. His dad was a little on the edge of crazy, his uncle Bobby was closer to a parent and they weren’t really even related, his home was a Chevy Impala, and his brother…

At 22 years old, Sam had seen a lot of things in his life: ghosts, demons, wendigos, vampires, the death of his girlfriend. He’d often heard the mantra “everything works itself out”. In his experience that had never proven to be anything but a flat out lie. He supposed though, that his life was a statistical outlier- couldn’t blame the rest of the world that he happened to draw the short straw. Somewhere along the ride, Sam internalized the fact that “normal” and “happy” weren’t in his cards. And he’d never been one to mourn what had never been. He did however allow himself one small exception.

One of the reasons Sam never quite missed his mother in the same way his brother did was that Dean took care of him in every way he could from the day she died. He fed Sam. He put Sam to bed at night. He taught Sam everything a boy needs to know. He’d really been the one constant Sam had in a life always on the move. But there was just this one thing about his brother that bothered Sam, had always bothered him. Dean was beautiful. Like really exceptionally, knock-the-wind-out-of-your-chest beautiful. 

That was the one injustice that Sam couldn’t just accept like every other crappy part of his life. He envied every stranger they met, especially the women Dean graced with his attention. Not because of the flirting or even the occasional one night stands. Those stopped bothering him ages ago. He knew, deep down where even his inferiority complex couldn’t touch, that Dean loved him more than anyone. He knew it without having to consciously think it- it just _was_. Sex in passing wasn’t the problem. Sam envied them because they got to see Dean, really see him for the first time. He saw the way their eyes would widen, pupils dilate, tongue would dart out to lick their lips subconsciously, heard the sharp intake of breath when they caught their first glance at his brother. Of course Dean had this effect on people just by simply entering a room; the second he’d set his eyes on one of them, well, they were gone. 

He hated every single one of them just a tiny bit, the little bit of jealousy he would allow himself to feel toward those more fortunate than himself. He never had that moment, never got to really see his brother for the first time. Of course most of his earliest memories were of Dean. Little Dean, chubby, freckled, blonde, and clumsy— then older taller Dean, strict, and grumpy. He remembered all of them, and all of them had been his brother.  But that was just it; he’d always known that face in one way or another but he’d seen it grow so slowly he never got to have that moment. That moment all those strangers got to have when he entered the room or, gods forbid, glanced their way. As Dean got older his beauty became more defined year after year, like a diamond being polished. Sam stared a lot as a kid, openly because he didn’t know how to curb his captivation quite yet. He was completely sure his father had noticed on one or more occasions. But they never breached the topic so he left it there- at an almost-nothing status. 

It wasn’t that he wanted Dean to look at him the way he looked at a particularly cute damsel of the week. He didn’t think of his brother in the way that…the way that however those girls looked at him did. It was just that sometimes, when Sam would stay especially late in any given local library doing research on a hunt (never had time to get a library card) just before they were about to close, Dean would come find him. Sometimes he’d be wearing his favorite leather jacket, other times a suit from the job he’d been working, whatever he was wearing his clothes would always be disheveled, tie- if he was wearing one- loose and crooked, jacket wrinkled. His hair would be sticking up, spikier than usual from fingers through it all day, eyes darting around the room slightly anxiously searching for him. Sam would let himself feel just a little bit important for a moment then. And he got to feel just a glimpse of what they did.

The room would light up around him, space seeming to grow and shrink with his presence. If Sam was feeling particularly sentimental he’d say Dean was like a work of art. And for an instant he could imagine what it would be like to see what those strangers got to see- the full force of his beauty. And it never failed to knock him back in his seat. He wouldn’t recover until Dean’s eyes found him, relaxed, and he’d charge over, all wide eyes and swinging arms and bowlegs, demanding that they get out of this place and get some food because he was starving. Sam would roll his eyes, close the whatever he was reading, and let himself be ushered out of the building. The experience was like a camera flash: it always left him momentarily blinded, thrown off by the sharp contrast of how dim the rest of the world was. And he hated those strangers just a little bit more.

 

Sometimes, after Sam had left for college, he’d lay awake at night and wonder what it’d be like to see Dean again. It had been weeks, then months, then years since he’d seen him. How long would it take him to blink the stars out of his eyes when he finally saw light again after being in the dark for so long? The thought scared him more than he was willing to admit. He’d shove it to the back corner of his mind, put it off just a little bit longer.

 

 

* * *

**  
**

**Dean**

There’s something amazing about the sentence “I’m in love with you” it doesn’t get nearly enough credit, always overshadowed by “I love you”. Those three little words everyone wants to hear. But they’re so ambiguous aren’t they? I love you could mean anything- a friend, parent, girlfriend, a brother. _I’m in love with you_ leaves no room for confusion. I think about you all the time. You’re more than important to me- you _are_ me.

Dean Winchester had always been a black and white kind of guy- hard not to be when you live in a world of good versus evil. The older he got the more he realized most things worked in more of a gradient: the whole world wasn’t made up of only monsters or family. Still though, Dean considered himself to be a simple guy, and he liked to keep things that way whenever he could.

Dean spent the majority of his life a few feet away from his brother. He knew they didn’t have a normal relationship but it was literally the last thing he was worried about. There had been comments about their unusual relationship before- he’d heard conversations people had with his dad when they were younger. To Dean it felt a lot like worrying about low tire pressure while in a car careening off of a cliff side. Their relationship seemed very cut and dry as a kid. The most important thing is to take care of Sammy- so that’s what he did. The things that didn’t make sense, things in between the black and white, well he didn’t bother to consider those most days. Some nights though, when they would end up driving through the night, he’d lie awake in the backseat wondering silently. If protecting Sam is most important why are we still hunting? If nothing comes before finding the thing that killed mom, what about Sam? The questions stayed silent though. There was no need to complicate what was black and white. Sam was good, Sam was important, monsters were evil, and it was their job to kill them. 

Dean’s dad was a hunter: that’s not what he _did_ that’s what he _was_. If you do the same thing, and only that one thing, for long enough it becomes inseparable from who you are. John was harsh, single-minded, focused. It was like he was perpetually stuck in that moment just before you take the shot, and nothing could pull him back from that moment. He tried to teach Dean to be the same way, always sharp, always focused. But the problem with tunnel vision is the inability to function in any other aspect of life. Dean was never much like his father, not really. He wasn’t stubborn enough, wasn’t cold enough, wasn’t able to turn off everything but the hunt. He was just too much like his mother, and as much as he loved her, he hated himself a little every time he saw her in himself. 

To their father’s eternal frustration, Dean somehow misinterpreted “keep Sam safe” as “keep Sam happy” and had always been too soft on him. Dean always took the sharp edges of the life they led himself before they could reach Sam- or tried to. And yet his kid brother still turned out to be more like their dad than him. It didn’t seem fair. He couldn’t resent Sam for it though; both his father and brother had been blessed with loss in a way that Dean never had and he doubted ever would. They loved someone, built something made to last and had it taken in the most brutal way. But you can’t lose something you never had and Dean had never been in love. Not the way John loved Mary, or Sam loved Jessica; he never believed he could have a forever with anyone. Even if it _were_ possible, it would be too complicated and Dean liked to keep things black and white. 

The only stable relationship he’d ever had, and probably ever will, was with his brother. From the time Sammy was born until the day he left for college Dean kept him as close as possible. Even before the fire he knew Sam was important- and after, well, he was the only thing that was. John had been an immovable boulder almost as long as Dean could remember, but even he seemed empty after Sam left. They went on hunts just as much, if not more, than before he left but it was different. They weren’t just killing for Mary; it was like John thought he’d lost both of them. Dean didn’t just go through the motions of hunting- he went through them as passionately as he could. _For mom_ , he always told himself. But how do you go from something being the most important part of your life, the purpose for your existence, to being nothing but a brother in-name-only, thousands of miles away?

 

Dean was alone now, the only thing left of the things he’d always considered inextricable aspects of his life was the car. He hadn’t seen his dad in weeks and Sam- he couldn’t even remember the last time he talked to Sam. That was a lie, but one he didn’t particularly want to think about. He’d think about calling him then, or just driving all the way to California. Maybe he wouldn’t even say anything; Sam wouldn’t even have to know he’d been there. He could just. Make sure he was safe. But then he’d imagine his little brother all cleaned up, dressed nice, books in one arm, a nice girl on the other. And so Dean did what he knew how to do. He kept things simple. He hunted.

 

 

 


End file.
